2014 Media Coverage

Articles about the Department's teaching and research regularly appear in the written and broadcast media. Recent coverage included:

Innovation: it’s not all a walk in the parkTimes Higher Education, 12/06/2014, p.11, Holly ElseThe former academic director of Oxford’s Begbroke Science Park has spoken about his ‘frustration’ while running the park. Peter Dobson, who retired last year, told last month’s Ideas to IPO conference that universities should work closely with their local regions on innovation, rather than try to run science parks themselves. Mr Dobson claimed that his ideas to expand Begbroke were often blocked by University committees. He said he called for more collaborative labs with industry but that senior management ‘did not know what I meant’. Begbroke houses around 30 companies, many of which have developed out of University activities. A University spokesperson said that innovation was ‘embedded at the heart of [the University’s] Strategic Plan, and Begbroke Science Park is an integral part of that plan’. The spokesperson cited the recently announced £11m Begbroke Innovation Accelerator to help small and medium-sized businesses bring ideas to market, in which Oxford has invested £7m.http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/with-oxford-innovation-is-not-awalk-in-the-park/2013854.article

£2m funds injectionOxford Mail, 12/06/2014, p.41Health software developer Oxehealth has raised £2m from investors. The cash has come from venture capital firm IP Group and individuals. Oxehealth, which operates out of Oxford University’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering, uses technology developed by Professor Lionel Tarassenko that enables a digital video camera, tablet or phone to monitor the vital signs of an individual, without the need for physical contact or additional equipment.

Preparing the road for driverless carsThe Daily Telegraph, 09/06/2014, p.10, Matthew HolehouseIn the wake of Google’s self-driving car announcement and changes to US motoring laws science minister David Willetts has told the Daily Mail that the UK government is rewriting the Highway Code to allow driverless cars on Britain’s roads. Article highlights that researchers from Oxford University’s Department of Engineering Science are developing a self-driving car that can memorise a route by recognising its surroundings and then offers to engage autopilot when a familiar route is driven again. Mr Willetts said: “We need to work on these type of regulations so that as the technology develops in Oxford and elsewhere we can see them used.”http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/10885236/Googles-driverless-cars-to-be-allowed-on-roads-after-ministers-rewrite-Highway-Code.html

Diagnosis via video-linkOxford Mail, 10/06/2014, p.8Researchers hope a video device will help medics better spot if a diabetes sufferer is at risk of a hypoglycaemic event, drowsiness or even losing consciousness. The subject has to keep completely still so a camera can detect changes in skin colour and their breathing from expansion of the chest. It is being developed by Oxford University’s Institute of Biomedical Engineering as an alternative to testing blood by pricking the finger.

Google unveils design for its own self-driving carNew Scientist online, 28/05/2014, Paul MarksArticle on the design for Google’s self-driving car which was revealed this week notes that Milton Keynes is planning to trial autonomous pods late next year, with the aim of having 100 of them providing a city-centre taxi service by 2017. The University of Oxford's mobile robotics group is developing the sensor technology while RDM Group of Coventry is manufacturing the vehicles.http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25637-google-unveils-design-for-its-own-selfdriving-car.html

Hands freeThe Times, 16/05/2014, p.24Leader looking at ‘gridlocked Britain’ and the potential of driverless technology to provide a solution states: ‘Britain’s leading contender in the field is the University of Oxford’s Mobile Robotics Group, which this week announced plans to build three two-person prototypes capable of travelling at the less-than-mind-bending speed of 7mph.’http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/leaders/article4091220.ece

How the first women broke an all-male mouldOxford Mail, 15/04/2014, pp.8-9, Rachel BayneFeature on the first women students to be admitted to all-male colleges at Oxford, forty years ago. Brasenose, Jesus, Wadham, Hertford and St Catherine’s were the first colleges to go co-educational, in 1974. A number of the first female students at these colleges are interviewed about their experiences. Professor Gilliane Sills, the first female Fellow of St Catherine’s, also discusses her experiences: “When I applied for the post at Oxford, it was to teach engineering. My PhD was in engineering, but I had never taught it at undergraduate level. I would have to work into the small hours of the morning preparing for tutorials. But it is a very rewarding way of teaching, because you really found that you got to know the students rather well… I do remember being very well supported by the college. Everyone was very helpful. I remember Alan Bullock, the Master, asking me if I would join the domestic committee at the college. He took great pains to explain that he wasn’t asking… because I was a woman. It was a surprisingly long time until all of the colleges got more than just a very small number of women fellows. The whole idea now that colleges would be single sex seems a very strange one. I think they are better institutions because of it.”http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/11148343.How_the_first_women_broke_the_all_male_mould_at_Oxford_University/

£30,000 turbine aidOxford Mail, 27/03/2014, p.16An innovative start-up from the Department of Engineering Science at Oxford University has won £30,000 at the regional final of the Shell Springboard programme. The money will help Kepler Energy develop a tidal turbine, designed to harness electricity from slow ocean currents.

The ImagineersBBC 2 - 25/03/2014, 04:02Repeat of a programme first shown in May 2013: Interview with Dr Eleanor Stride of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at Oxford University. She talks about and demonstrates her research into ways of targeting cancer cells with drugs rather than poisoning patients’ entire bodies, as happens with current chemotherapy techniques. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01skhbs/The_Imagineers/

Gas-powered idea wins students BP's 'Ultimate Field Trip'The Telegraph, 11/3/2014, Alan ToveyThree university students will be heading off on what BP bills as the "Ultimate Field Trip" to Alaska and Chicago after triumphing in a competition run by the energy company to promote science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) skills. The "I Challenge You to a Joule" team from Oxford University came out ahead of 120 others in the contest ways that energy companies can reduce the amount of power they use in their operations. The solution, which could fit in anywhere from the drill bit to point of sale to consumers, also had to have the potential to scale across the industry and be able to be implemented by 2025.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/10691035/Gas-powered-idea-wins-students-BPs-Ultimate-Field-Trip.html

Bringing clarity to scienceOxford Times, 27/02/2014, p.33, Gill OliverFull page interview with Professor Alison Noble, OBE, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Department of Engineering Science and Director of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering. Last year Professor Noble was awarded the OBE for services to science and engineering, primarily for her ground-breaking work in ultrasound, cardiovascular, cancer and women’s health imaging. Of her research she says: ‘I love what I do now because I am doing engineering research but seeing the early impact of it on the medical world. It’s an ideal situation, where clinicians identify problems they need fixed and we engineers come up with ways to solve those tasks ... it is truly about working together.’

Tidal energy: Pentland Firth ‘could power half of Scotland’BBC News Online, 20/1/2014The Pentland Firth could provide enough renewable energy to power about half of Scotland, according to research involving engineers from Oxford University. They said turbines placed in the stretch of water between Orkney and the Scottish mainland could generate 1.9GW of clean energy. Professor Guy Houlsby, of the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford, who led the study, said: “The UK enjoys potentially some of the best tidal resources worldwide, and if we exploit them wisely they could make an important contribution to our energy supply.”http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-25800448

Seven universities set up national wind tunnel facilityBBC News online, 09/01/2014Wind tunnel facilities at seven UK universities, including Oxford, are to be upgraded as part of a £13.3m project to place Britain at the forefront of aerospace research. The new National Wind Tunnel Facility will incorporate two sites in London and others in Glasgow, Cambridge, Oxford, Southampton and Cranfield. The £13.3m funding package comes from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the UK Aerodynamics Centre.

Keep taking the tablets: Hospitals to replace bedside charts with iPadOxford Mail, p.1–2, 04/01/2014, Oliver EvansBedside charts are to be replaced by computer tablets such as iPads at Oxfordshire NHS hospitals under a scheme devised with Oxford University. Doctors and nurses currently use paper charts to record and assess vital signs like heart rate and blood pressure. If they need advice from a doctor, the chart has to be taken to them or consultants have to visit the ward. But staff will now input data that can be read at another tablet via a staff wi-fi network. University Professor of Electrical Engineering Lionel Tarassenko, who led the project, said: ‘The new system will help nurses, who work in busy, high-pressure environments, care for patients more efficiently and effectively. The traditional chart-based method or recording vital signs data is susceptible to errors in both recording and analysis of vital signs.’ He said it is a “major step towards the digital hospital in which all sources of patient information are linked and all healthcare staff are interconnected... This can only have a positive impact on patient safety.”